Port Louis — The theme for International Women's Day this year is equal rights, equal opportunities and progress for all, a theme which gives us little room for complacency, still less a reason to brag. To be fair, however, although this country can hardly be considered a haven for gender equality since the relationship between men and women is still one of oppression, or at least of relative dominance, great efforts have been made recently to empower women.

The Ministry of Women has virtually dragged housewives out of their hiding places and made entrepreneurs out of them. Also, many girls, previously considered unmanageable, have been rehabilitated by the Ministry of Social Security in half-way homes and trained into professions where they can now make a living. Still, far too many women, shackled with the burden of children and heavily dependent on their partners for their survival are subject to all kinds of abuse. Other professionally trained mothers find themselves forced to reduce their participation in the workforce and downscale their hopes for achievement.

But this is not what the discussions will be about. Because of the imminent elections and the legitimate ambitions of the few privileged women, the debate about equal opportunities for women will again tend to focus on quotas and getting more women involved in politics and forget, to a large extent, about dealing with the plight of the thousands of ordinary women.

Political parties will also find in the politically correct talk of quotas a way of showing how progressive they are. They will look for figures to toss at us to show that women have the opportunity to live up to their full potential, which we defi nitely don't.

The paltry participation of women in politics is but an extension of their limited bearing on meaningful decision- making in general. To improve that, the condition of the ordinary woman has to be improved first.

Parents rank their children's well-being as their top priority. Therefore, for any improvement in the condition of women, sufficient resources for child care need to be made available, regulated and subsidised, and working mothers have to be supported by adequate preschool and after school programmes. Workplaces need to be flexible enough in considering the needs of families where both parents work.

Also, empowering women means giving them the opportunity to take their lives into their own hands. This is not possible for as long as our archaic mentalities, fuelled by the intervention of religious and socio-cultural groups, keep pushing them down. Women do not need to be in politics to fight for these ideals. They do not need to be in the Legislative Assembly to be able to hold the ladder firm for their sisters to climb out of poverty, stigma, prejudice and helplessness. Men do not need to be politicians either to understand that society can only make it if they hold the other side of the ladder for us if, as well as being our life partners, they can also be our household and child-care partners.

More women in politics? Yes please if that is their ambition. But it is not the only route to follow nor is it a measure of gender equality. We have more women in parliament than in the U.S. and less than a third of Rwanda. Do we have more rights than women in the U.S. and less than a third of the rights that women have in Rwanda? I think not. Sorry!